MINNEAPOLIS _ The Minnesota Twins are getting used to rallying.
One day after coming back from five runs down against Texas, the Twins shook off a three-run deficit to take a 5-4 lead over the Milwaukee Brewers in the seventh inning on Monday night. They held on by that score, with Matt Belisle earning a save for the second day in a row.
Eddie Rosario tied the score in the seventh when he hit a line drive to right that was horribly misjudged by Domingo Santana. That enabled Eduardo Escobar to score from first.
Rosario was bunted over to third by Byron Buxton, but Ehire Adrianza popped the next pitch up. But with two out, Rosario scored when Brewers righthander Oliver Drake was called for a balk.
Jorge Polanco was the best thing going for the Twins before that, at least at the plate. He collected hits in each of his first four plate appearances, tying a career high. That included the only hit by the team with a runner in scoring position over the game's first eight innings.
The Twins stranded nine runners on base over the first six innings, a game plan that didn't seem likely to work against a Milwaukee team in the middle of a bounce-back season.
The Twins are trying to convince themselves that they can get back in playoff contention. But they had a funny way of showing it Monday, as they committed three errors while falling behind 3-0.
The Brewers rolled into town with a roster of unheralded players that nevertheless entered Monday one-half game behind the Chicago Cubs for the NL Central lead.
And they showed the Twins early why they are one of the surprise teams in the majors this season, as they jumped on righthander Ervin Santana in the third inning.
Santana had retired the first six batters he faced when he left a 3-2 slider to Keon Broxton over the heart of the plate and watched it get smashed 435 feet to left for a 1-0 Milwaukee lead.
Santana hit Domingo Santana with two outs to put a runner on first base. Ryan Braun reached base when his routine grounder was mishandled by shortstop Polanco for an error, putting two runners on.
Travis Shaw singled to center, scoring Santana. And Braun also scored when Buxton overran the ball, his fourth error of the season.
The Twins scored a run in the bottom of the inning to make it 3-1, but Broxton returned in the fourth with a RBI double that put Milwaukee ahead, 4-1.
Milwaukee lefthander Brent Suter was effective to that point, and he retired the first two batters of the fourth as well. But he fell apart after that.
Buxton rolled a seeing-eye single to left, Adrianza singled to center and Jason Castro walked to load the bases for Polanco, who began the day with a .217 batting average.
Suter served up a belt-high pitch, and Polanco hit it just inside the third-base bag for a two-run double to get the Twins within 4-3.
If there's any Twins player who needed a big hit, it was Polanco. The Twins see great offensive potential in the infielder, but his struggles at the plate and in the field led to him losing his starting shortstop position.
Twins manager Paul Molitor has been resigned to using Adrianza and Eduardo Escobar at short in recent weeks, which has re-ignited the debate over Polanco's ability to stick at short in the majors.
